Date of Conferral

2023

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Donna Bailey

Abstract

Rates of infant deaths due to sudden infant death syndrome, asphyxia, and sudden unexplained infant death dropped significantly during the original marketing and education push for infant safe sleep practices during the 1990s following the recommendations from the Center for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics, but a plateau has occurred with no further recent decreases. Safe sleep practices are inconsistent in the practicum site and guidelines for safe sleep practices do not exist. Although aware of the concepts, staff do not consistently educate families about maintaining the practices within the hospital environment, as evidenced by non-compliance with safe sleep practice basic principles on informal crib checks. A review of the literature revealed increases in safe sleep practice adherence in inpatient hospital settings with the education of staff and quality improvement projects. Using Lewin’s change theory, a staff education project was implemented to update staff awareness of AAP 2022 recommendations. Pre and post-surveys revealed staff did indeed have knowledge of these practices, but barriers prevented consistent practice in the inpatient setting, including the caregivers themselves, and variability in provider recommendations with other positioning guidelines such as gastric reflux precautions. The project highlighted that future work was needed in bundle/guideline creation, caregiver education, and reduction in hospital unit variability. Future goals will aim to use this project as a basis to create guidelines for safe sleep practices in our entire hospital to address these barriers, affecting social change by modeling these guidelines for caregivers to take home, and hopefully affecting infant mortality rates in our county and state.

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